My job is to prepare and interview people (some of whom I decide on, some of whom we get through PRs, some of whom the team suggests). But the decision about when to upload etc is not entirely up to me.

Dear Sir and Film Companions team, Not sure if I can ask this. Just read your comment on the way you decide on people you interview. You have questioned filmmakers about involving writers in the process of film making very often. I consider Writer Jeyamohan is one of the sensible person whom you could converse a lot on this concern. He has worked on different kinds of projects including 2.0, Naan Kadavul, Angaditheru, Papanasam, Ozhimuri and so. Usually he does not appear on social media platforms, yet recently came across a interview of him on 2.0. He is also a veteran writer in Tamil. It’d be great to see you both converse about stories and screenwriting. (I don’t think he has any PRs. You could just mail him and ask for it.) Please try. Thanks. #AskBR﻿

+1 for Jeyamohan as well. The talk whose link I pasted above is a good example of his nuanced understanding of tamil psyche. In the talk, I was impressed by the explanation he gave about Jo’s “casteless loosu ponnu” portrayal and the point he mentions about the three generatons depicted in the movie and their violence. In his blogs, I have read him talking at length about the process of writing 1) Sarkar 2) Naan Kadavul and he has briefly touched upon 2.0 process as well, among other things, ofcourse.

+100 for Gautam’s request. Jeyamohan is a stellar writer. He has already written 19 novels (averaging 900pages per novel) in 4years (of 10 years) in the ongoing Venmurasu Mahabharata marathon novel series. He would probably write another 20novels in this series. In an Anantha Vikatan interview, Canada based Srilankan Tamil writer Aa.Muthulingam said that Jeyamohan is totally qualified for a Bharat Ratna or even a Nobel Prize in (at world level) literature.

Kamal about Jeyamohan

Jeyamohan.in website has some 1 lakh viewers/readers everyday(yes!). Jeyamohan’s Pariyerum Perumal speech video already has view of 30k in less than 20 hours since he shared in his website today. So, FilmCompanionSouth (FCS) will easily get the viewer count too and the audience would get good content as usual from FCS.

I am, and hope many other film buffs, too, would love to know about Mahendran, the man with such an interesting body of work and craft that is envied by other legendary film makers. I understand that you adhere to certain procedures before interviewing a personality. He is 79, and i think it is about time we got to learn about him and his contribution to Tamil cinema. Thank you.

Watched the interview twice, it was really hard to understand what he was saying a lot of the times. Second time, I switched off the visuals and plugged in the audio only which helped me to understand a little more

PC seems to belong to the artistically intelligent group that sreehari Nair was mentioning. He has trouble and looks very uncomfortable having to articulate the process. You did your best and pushed him hard, but he wouldn’t budge beyond a point

Was he annoyed by that cinemascope question?

There were some great nuggets thrown around here and there, like color palette for OKK and his inspiration for lighting schemes, film vs digital, but overall, this must be the toughest interview that you have done

I thought you might have asked him regarding his experience working with Myskkin. Cos I remember in your interview with Mysskin, Myskkin said not so “flattering” words regarding good cinematography (forgot the exact words). Thanks for such a wonderful interview.

Incredible job BR sir as an interviewer. In this day and age, when other interviewers frequently interrupt their guests, and even complete their sentences sometimes, I really appreciated how you let him articulate his thoughts, without interrupting him or distracting him. I Didn’t see his response to the CinemaScope question as annoyance, he seemed genuinely curious as to why you focused in on that aspect.

So I had this interesting exchange on FB, and wanted to put it up here:

Sam Pau (on my interview): This is what happens when a complete Theorist interviewer tries to make a “Man of Action” condense his actions and Instincts into Patterns and Theory.

Even after all the efforts made by Baradwaj Rangan to find a meaning to Pc Sreeram’s visuals, the man just answered in Clint Eastwood’s style,

“If you want to shoot, just shoot. Don’t think” B|
The beauty of a subject is in the Randomness and Abstractness, Not the meaning we try to force on it.

BR: Okay, I saw this interview very differently. For one, I never try to impose MY meanings on a creator. They remain mine. 😀 Here, the attempt was to get at what PC is about. Is he like Ravi Varman or Vittorio Storaro, with an idea or color theory behind his work? Or is he a point and shoot guy? Or is it really that he cannot (or maybe resists) putting into words the processes behind his work? My job is to poke and prod and see what happens. Again, I do not try and force-fit interviewees into my paradigms. Of course, my questions are going to sound like ME, but that’s inevitable, right? 😀

I always find interviewers to be cynical when it comes to talking about film vs digital debate. Thankfully this interview wasn’t. I believe in future, shooting on film or digital will be a matter of choice, like the situation in hollywood. Wish BR spoke about the possibility of coexistence. I also wish PC opened up about the colour timing process of Alaipayuthey because cinematographers were never that imaginative with colour correction during photochemical process (they were mainly used to paint the skies or for day to night conversion). And IMO Thiruda Thiruda was the tour de force of his body of work. Excellent interview by BR

1) He is not very articulate and mostly mumbles his responses.
2) He doesnt really like talking about his process

And last but not the least, he gives the impression that the process is boring. Even in this interview, he seemed to constantly suggest that his thinking process and how he got to take a shot is “boring”.

Couple of commenters here have not been very kind to PC Sreeram. Looks like he is not very comfortable in English, it might have helped if the conversation had been in tamil. There is one point where he says “Eppidi sollarathunu theriyalai”.I guess he may have articulated his thoughts better in tamil.